which he wrote the "Henriade" and corrected "The Œdipe."
1718—Released April 11th, as a result of entertaining the regent with comedy, and changed his name, for luck, as he says himself, to Voltaire, a name found several generations back in the family of his mother.
1722—M. Arouet, Voltaire's father, died January 1st, leaving Armand, the orthodox son, his office, worth 13,000 francs a year, and to Voltaire property yielding about 4,000 francs a year. Voltaire was granted a pension of 2,000 francs by the regent. He loaned money at ten per cent. a year to dukes, princes and other grand seigniors with a determination to become independent. He always lived well within his income.
1726—It was desirable to leave France for a time, hence Voltaire's visit to England. His letters show how deeply he was impressed by the characteristics of the nation by whom he was so cordially welcomed. Voltaire having lost 20,000 francs through a Jewish financier, the king of England presented him with one hundred pounds.
1727—He studied English so industriously that within six months he could write it well, and within a year was writing English poetry. He made many influential friends, and seems to have known almost every living Englishman of note. He studied Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke, Bacon, Swift, Young, Thomson, Congreve, Pope, Addison, and others. His two and a half years in England were as a post-graduate university course to him, and amidst his studies he still was a producer, completing unfinished works and preparing others for his London publisher. Newton and Locke—Locke in particular—inspired in Voltaire his strongest and best trait—the love of justice for its own sake.
1730-1731—The first year after his return from England was comparatively peaceful, but in March of 1730 his friend, the brilliant actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur, died at the age of twenty-eight, and was refused Christian burial; Voltaire leaped forward with his accustomed magnanimity as her champion, unhesitatingly endangering his safety in16
